Thank you for the good wishes, and happy May Day as well.
Over here, it's a public holiday but hardly anyone remembers what happened in Chicago...
...and to see people walk with red and/or black flags today, one would have to take a ship 80 km northwards. Still, one guy from the trade union of transport workers got his article published today, and I would not be surprised if smaller meetings happened where people did remember.
Not all protests for Gaza were meant to gain engagement, many were organized to cause direct economic disruption to those that profit from the war, that is a goal.
I actually totally agree with you. I should've been more careful in the text to distinguish between those two very different kinds of actions. I actually really, really like things that disrupt those that profit, but those are not nearly as common as going to the local park or whatever. I might throw in a footnote to clarify.
I discussed the original text that this is a reaction to with a Brazilian who claims to be well connected to the original core cell that started the protests and they said that Bevin's reading is a complete misinterpretation of what happened. I think some other Brazilian here on Lemmy also commented something similar.
Personally I know a bit more about the protests in Egypt, and for these I would also but to a lesser extend say that Bevin's description of them is very flawed. At the very least some of the people involved are on record stating that the "Twitter revolution" moniker is a complete western media fabrication and social media played only a very small role in organising the protests.
That's kind of a weird critique, because it's actually consistent with the book. He spends a lot of time talking about how wildly different every person's interpretation of the event is, and that's kind of the problem. It's part of why these movements are illegible to power. He's very clear that this is his interpretation, based on his own contacts, experience, and extensive research, but that it's not going to be the same as everyone else's.
Same is true with the moniker. Whether or not the people on the ground felt that way about it or not, that story, fabricated without input from those on the ground, is what ended up creating meaning out of the movement, at least insomuch as power is concerned. That's like the core thesis of the book: The problem with that wave of protests was not being able to assert their own meaning over their actions. The meaning was created for them by people like western media, and they weren't able to organize their own narrative, choose their own representatives, etc.
edit to add: IIRC, he even specifically discusses how the different people in the core group of Brazilian organizers disagree on what happened.
the lam came to an end last August, when Cuban authorities detained the 50-year-old environmental activist during a layover in Havana and turned him over to the United States
Cuba did whatt?????
Besides that, solidarity to all those imprisoned and on the run!
“ You don’t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying I wish you’d do something about these right-wing extremists,” said Johnson, who left his position in 2010, after his warnings about right-wing violence were dismissed. “If enough people lobbied congresspeople about white nationalists and how it’s affecting their business activity, then I’m sure you’ll get legislation.”
Turns out capitalists are way more concerned about leftists threatening to hurt their businesses than they are about reactionaries threatening to hurt actual people.
So glad they're the people in charge of our whole society.
I imagine the mods of this community might have a more thorough answer but for me the short answer is "no" or "not exactly". It's most of the things you just mentioned although AI probably won't be super popular to everyone here. The Solarpunk Manifesto states: "Solarpunk envisions a built environment creatively adapted for solar gain, amongst other things, using different technologies. The objective is to promote self sufficiency and living within natural limits" . In many ways it's a reaction to AnPrim that embraces technology and optimism about the future and I haven't seen any AnPrims write about their positive views of our movement.
I think Marxism Today totally missed the point of the movie. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is engaging fun you can share with your liberal friends, that also happens to challenge their notions of acceptable praxis against climate change.
It's a heist film in the Ocean's Eleven tradition, using all the classic tropes like nonlinear narrative, assembling the crew, third act twist - it's unrealistic because it is meant to be entertaining rather than informative. I watched the interview MT clipped from, and they left out the context that they consulted with the counter-terrorism expert so that they wouldn't get into legal trouble for demonstrating actual bomb-making techniques. They collaborated with a government official because wanted their film to have the widest possible release, not to help or hinder people making actual bombs.
I agree that Marxist groups have a hypocritical relationship with 'adventurism' - they only use that term if the cadre's results aren't immediately celebrated by the proletariat. If they succeed and it polls well, they call them the people's vanguard and pretend their plans were stamped at party headquarters. Stalin was a literal heist man, robbing banks for the Bolsheviks. I'm sure the guy who punched Richard Spencer consulted a committee first.
I love the reviews by army-funded Michael Bay film fan types - they all grudgingly admit it's an excellent film, and without any irony say their only demerit is that it's 'propaganda' - that's high praise. If you haven't seen it already, assemble your crew.
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